With the need for organisations to have a digital presence on the rise, there are more ways for cyber-criminals to pose a threat to your brand than ever before. From fraudulent domains mimicking your website, to social media profiles using your logo and even the names of your executives. All of this can have a significant impact on your brand’s reputation as well as lead to financial implications. By optimising your brand threat intelligence you can better understand how to protect your company from cyber-threats. In this article we’ll explore three key ways you can level-up your threat awareness,

You don’t know what you don’t know

The first step to increasing your brand threat intelligence is by educating yourself on the types of threats that are out there. Brand impersonation and manipulation can include fake social media profiles intended to direct users to fraudulent websites where they will be coaxed into providing their personal and/or financial information. Alternatively these websites fraudulently mis-representing your company may also sell counterfeit merchandise.

Another form of brand abuse is the development and distribution of fake mobile apps. Typically these apps appear to be legitimate but once downloaded, they release malware onto the victim’s device. These examples may seem as though the manipulated public are the victims, however in many cases, the damage to your brand’s reputation is far worse. If counterfeit versions of your company’s products are being sold this could also mean a loss in revenue.

Understand where you’re vulnerable

Conducting regular assessments on your network’s digital assets to pinpoint areas of weakness can give you a good idea of where a cyber-criminal may target your company. It’s also important to review your internal training structure to ensure your staff are on the look-out for phishing scams targeted at them by cyber-criminals impersonating the executives within your company.

Team up with the experts

With a digital presence essentially being a necessity for all companies these days, not all have an internal digital security department that can adequately monitor and protect their brand. By working with an experienced team of analysts who can proactively source and takedown threats to your company before they have the chance to do damage can be the thing that prevents irreparable damage being done to your brand. At FraudWatch, we offer brand threat intelligence solutions that do just that. With almost two decades of experience, our human analysts know exactly what to look for and we have the fastest takedown SLAs in the business. Reach out to us to discuss how we can help with your brand threat intelligence.